Paul Thill

June 28, 2013, 5:22PM

06/28/2013

Paul Thill, a thrill-seeking adventurer who loved to dance and who thrived after the birth of his daughter nearly four years ago, died June 21 of a cancerous brain tumor. He was 47.

Paul Anthony Thill, born on June 3, 1966, in Santa Rosa, was one of Tina and Les Thill's 11 children.

As the youngest boy, he was a born thrill seeker and adventurer, said his sister, Sarah Stevenson of Bend, Ore.

"He lived life at 150 miles per hour," she said. "If there was a day, he was living it to the fullest."

Thill attended Bellevue Elementary School, Cook Junior High and Montgomery High School. After graduating in 1984, Thill studied at Santa Rosa Junior College and eventually went to work for Hewlett-Packard.

After nearly a decade working with computers, Thill turned to plastering and worked for a number of companies. He also worked as a surveyor.

An avid athlete and outdoors enthusiast, Thill made regular trip to Vail, Colo. to ski the toughest slopes. He rode his bike frequently and long told anyone who would listen that he would never settle down and marry a woman unless she was able to ride to the top of Skyline Wilderness Park in Napa without walking her bike.

Monika Ederova passed the test.

The pair met while ballroom dancing and were married Aug. 9, 2003, in Tahoe.

Paul Thill, a thrill-seeking adventurer who loved to dance and who thrived after the birth of his daughter nearly four years ago, died June 21 of a cancerous brain tumor. He was 47.

Paul Anthony Thill, born on June 3, 1966, in Santa Rosa, was one of Tina and Les Thill's 11 children.

As the youngest boy, he was a born thrill seeker and adventurer, said his sister, Sarah Stevenson of Bend, Ore.

"He lived life at 150 miles per hour," she said. "If there was a day, he was living it to the fullest."

Thill attended Bellevue Elementary School, Cook Junior High and Montgomery High School. After graduating in 1984, Thill studied at Santa Rosa Junior College and eventually went to work for Hewlett-Packard.

After nearly a decade working with computers, Thill turned to plastering and worked for a number of companies. He also worked as a surveyor.

An avid athlete and outdoors enthusiast, Thill made regular trip to Vail, Colo. to ski the toughest slopes. He rode his bike frequently and long told anyone who would listen that he would never settle down and marry a woman unless she was able to ride to the top of Skyline Wilderness Park in Napa without walking her bike.

Monika Ederova passed the test.

The pair met while ballroom dancing and were married Aug. 9, 2003, in Tahoe.

Nearly four years ago, the couple welcomed their daughter, Klara.

"It just completed him, having her," said Thill's niece, Sheena Chiu of Napa. "That was what he was clean and sober for. When she was born, it was everything."

Thill, who had battled both drugs and alcohol, had been clean for 17 years, his sister said.

For nearly two decades, Thill made his home in Napa, where he tooled around town either on a sleek Honda Blackbird 1100 motorcycle or in an older model Ford truck he named "Old Blue."

When Chiu would see her uncle driving around town in Old Blue with Klara locked into a car seat nearby, she thought "It's probably the cutest thing ever. There is a proud daddy, you know?"